Thursday, January 30, 2014

Last academic year while we were going through our great lessons, I had presented to Disha, the Story of Geometry. While she listened to the story it did not spark any new interests in her. A new opportunity presented itself again this time.

As far as Math goes we do not strictly only do Montessori. You would have seen various blog posts where we combine Singapore and RightStart Math with Montessori. This is partly because of D's learning style. While she likes the concrete aspect of learning things, she finds it cumbersome to use the manipulatives to gain mastery of the facts. So while I present the initial concepts the Montessori way, repetition of the works does not happen here. She prefers the pencil and paper workbook style for that. We don't do only workbook/teacher's manual style here, since scripted lessons and strict lesson plans are not our style here. Hence we mix things up quite a bit here.

Lately Disha has mastered most of the concepts needed to complete RightStart Level C. I had been eyeing the Beast Academy books since September. In anticipation of the completion of the RS Level, I ordered the first set of books available. We are in love! The concepts we've covered so far are about angles, which we had already covered in Montessori. The comic book style format is new for us plus the workbook is not just mundane, repetitive stuff. The work book contains puzzles and mazes that can be solved only using Mathematical concepts which works well with her.

Not totally wanting to give up the wholesome view to subjects that Montessori provides instead of compartmentalizing them into their own discrete boxes, I wanted to integrate a little bit of history with the Geometry lessons.

We also did a small exercise with the knotted rope like the harpenodapta - the Egyptian rope strechers. Montessori for Everyone suggests using a rope 3 feet long, I did not have it on hand, so we used a small piece of yarn and knotted it at 3, 4 and 5 inches respectively. D got the idea so thats good!

Disha then decided to note all of this down on paper.

Then it was time for some creativity with the yarn and the pin board!

Anyway this time the lesson and Disha's interest in it was way different than before. She is older and more into Geometry now.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

We keep reading different blog posts about "A Day in the Life" of various homeschool bloggers. Some of us friends, decided to track every thing we do and post and compare notes. So here is our day, on Monday of this week.

Monday, Jan 27th, 2014.I wake up when it is still dark. No space to sleep! All four of us are crowded in a king bed. I wake up to find Disha's hand on my face and Megha lying down on my legs. I carefully move them as to not wake them and move over to the foot of the bed, where there is literally only a foot of space left! I don't sleep well. I hear the alarm and DH waking up and using the bathroom down the hall. I put a pillow over my head. Megha wakes up because her nose is blocked. I make her lay down on my tummy so her head is raised. It is still dark outside and I calculate the time to be sometime after 6 since DH is awake. Disha wakes up in the noise and complaints that she does not get to sleep next to me. I ask her to move closer. Meanwhile DH comes in to enquire what the commotion is all about. At this point I am fully awake, I just don't want to move and wake sleeping Megha. I wait for her to fall into deeper sleep while entertaining and planning the day with Disha. I look at my phone and the time is 7 AM.

7.15 After checking FB and mails in bed, Disha and I leave Meg sleeping and get out of the bedroom. I go into the bathroom for my morning routine while Disha heads to the couch to read.

7.45 DH leaves after I give him some cereal. I make coffee and start to look for the laptop and can't find it! I call DH and he gives me some leads, but none useful! I finally find it in the hall closet. Meanwhile D reads another book. She has no plans to brush her teeth or eat anything before the chess class!

8 AM Chess class starts. They are doing different openings. Disha is not there yet, so I should probably attend the classes and take notes for later. She does answer a few questions.

8.15 Meg wakes up and finds us. The three of us cuddle before the laptop. I finish my coffee. Meg gets hungry and wants to eat the cup cake we bought last night. I try to negotiate some fruit with it and finally give up and just give her the cup cake.

8.30 Disha gets lured by cup cake and quits class half way through. She brushes her teeth finally and makes herself a breakfast of cup cake, cereal and fruit. She eats it while reading Peter Pan and Vaccinations. I continue the class and also watch the archived spanish opening video.

9.30. Checked email and replied to piano teacher's new schedule. I get hungry and want to go have breakfast, but D wants to do some SOTW. She finds the review cards and we go thru the chapters we've done. We talk about timelines and how she could do one and add on to it. She wants to do some activities and starts to search for our activity book in the school room. The school room is a mess and she cant find it. While she is there she happens to take a look at the maps and has an idea for a new project. She wants to create a pin map with the flight symbols on a world map, but the puzzle pieces were all scattered. She comes upstairs to inform me about the mess in the school room.

10:00 I have a breakfast of coffee and bread while D talks to me about her ideas. Meg wants no breakfast but just a glass of milk. We plan an afternoon of cleaning. I finish up and check whats for lunch. We have left overs from last night, so I don't have to make anything. Meanwhile D starts to draw a united airlines plane while meg watches intently. this drawing session continues till 10.45.

10.45 We start math at my suggestion and she works on clock, money and subtraction. She sees the next lesson on geometry and wants one more lesson. We do some perimeter math and are done. While our Math lesson is going on, Meg does some drawing in her journal right next to me.

11:30 D found her FLL books during her visit to the school room in the morning and gets it upstairs. She writes one thank you letter to her new friends. This takes 45 mins as she is obsessed with making it look her best. I get bored, check FB, email and play with Meg.

12:00 The kids get hungry and I leave to get their lunch heated up. I hear shouts from the living room and had to break them up apart from hurting each other! This happens twice more in the next 10 mins.12:15: Give the kids lunch and I have mine while watching a talk show that I wanted to catch up on.12.45: The kids eat some and waste some. But they are done and wander back into the living room. D starts to draw in her dry erase board, while Megha watches and simultaneously sorts the dry erase markers by color. I am still watching TV.

1:00: I finally go clean up the table. Disha draws a picture of a family of dad, mom and herself. Megha gets upset that she is not in the picture! Disha explains that this was before Megha was born. Meg doesn't like the explanation, so Disha finally draws a picture of Meg. She also changes the dad to wearing shorts instead of pants and the kids laugh about how he looks! I snap a few pictures.

1:30: I type up our day till now and watch some previous episodes. The kids continue to draw and lucky me aren't fighting!2:00: We go downstairs. The kids decide to play instead of helping me clean. I take some before-pictures before attempting the clean. The kids play some, fight some, I intervene, redirect, then clean, they play and this goes on.

5:00: I hear things getting really bad and realize the kids are hungry. I finish up, snap a few pics and check up on them. Their play room is a mess and we put things away before heading upstairs.

5:10: I make myself a coffee and the kids eat fruit. Meg has a banana and a glass of milk. Dish has a kiwi and some straw berries. I start the rice and finish up the peas dish and start cutting the long beans.

5:30: The kids want to watch Little travelers on TV and I switch it on for them while I finish up dinner. While I am at it I also get black channa ready in the crock pot for tomorrow.

6:30: I msg DH to see if I need to pick him up from the bus stop and give the kids some cashew nuts. I realize I never had the coffee that I made and heat it up and join the kids to watch TV.

6:45: I get a call from DH that he had a late meeting and is just boarding. I switch on the laptop and continue to update this while watching TV. We finish watching British Isles and are now onto Japan

7:15: Another round of nuts and DH calls that he is going to the ATT store on the way. Have to pick him from there when he calls.

7:45: DH calls, the store is closed. Get the kids changed and go pick him up.

8:00: We all have dinner while talking about the day.

9:00: Relaxing on the couch having some family time. I finish typing up and we head to bed by 9.30.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Here is a summary of what my 7 year old did this week. We have not planned or scheduled anything. All of this was initiated by her, of course I encourage some by careful strewing!

We started of the week by watching "Big Bang: Universe Story" on Amazon. We had a discussion after this by recalling what we did during our First Great Lesson last year and reading the Jennifer Morgan book.

Then she wanted to work on Math, so she picked up the RS Level C Math workbook and worked on Multiplication Arrays, Addition with Carry over, clocks and word problems. We had stopped half way through Level C some time during the middle of last year. She was working on the first part of the workbook and this was general review.

She did some pages on Mad libs for language practice. She been reviewing books for San Francisco Book Reviews and this week she reviewed one of the two that she received. This is a great way to read new books!

We were discussing something and one thing led to another and we started talking about air pressure and started recalling what we did and learnt while doing BFSU Air Pressure lessons. That was for science.

We are yet to finish the book 1 of SOTW. Disha (known as D in this blog, my 7 year old) wanted to start from the beginning of book and read through it again! She has started it on her own now.

She has also been watching lots of brain pop and reading her other book that she received for review.

Friday, January 17, 2014

We've been missing in action here since the middle of last year. We had to make a couple of unexpected out of country trips to visit sick family members. Then we came back to my husband accepting a new job in another state, so relocation! We had to put our house on sale and then move to the new state! So all of last year went crazy fast. Earlier this month we moved into our new place in the new state of Washington!

So finally we are going to get back into blogging as our lives are taking on a new rhythm. Over the break from blogging and regular homeschooling we have had a lot of time to think and see what works for us best in terms of homeschooling and schedule. Though we were off from official homeschooling a lot of learning was still happening with the kids. Tons of books were being read and a lot of spontaneous writing was also happening. I remember my older one (who is now 7!) doing Math, inventing her own problems, just because she wanted to. My younger one (3) can count perfectly now and knows most of the letter sounds! They were watching a lot of documentaries on Amazon and videos on BrainPop.

We tried some Elementary Montessori last year with task cards and some schedule to the day. Though my older daughter went along with it, I don't think it fit her learning personality well. She loves more freedom, I like more freedom! So this week we've gone back to freedom schooling and we are much happier! We use Montessori, Classical and Unschooling principles and are doing what is kind of working for us. I will be posting about how are days are going subsequently.

For my 3 year old, we would still continue with Montessori since it is the best free learning method out there for pre-schoolers!

I want to end this post with a brag! So, when we were in India during the middle of last year with my dad who was sick, we were visiting a clinic to get my dad tested for diabetes. I was with him with my kids. My older daughter, who was six then, was talking to my dad about diabetes. She went on to educate him about the different types of diabetes, what happens in your body with each type and the different treatment options! The doctors and the medical staff there were amazed at her knowledge and understanding! She even went on to invent her own new type of diabetes and how she would treat it! I was surprised too since I did not know that she knew all this. Apparently she had read about this in a Discover Kids magazine that she receives monthly! The doctor there told me that her explanation was by far the simplest and best he had heard about diabetes through out his career!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

We are alive and well! With the weather getting better we've been out a lot and doing less structured schooling. We will be back eventually with school day posts. Till then, you all have a wonderful spring!

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About Me

Welcome to the kingdom of the Pink Princesses! This blog follows the Montessori inspired learning activities of my princesses D (now 6) and M (2). I was a computer architect in my former life and now I am happily working at home raising my princesses and having tons of fun with them!